Our Calling and Our Promise

St. Joseph Health continues a vibrant history of serving the needs of communities in Northern California for more than 100 years. Together with community-focused organizations and innovative partners, St. Joseph Health reaches beyond the clinical setting to meet the needs of today, while transforming conditions for a better tomorrow. Our mission calls us to care for everyone, especially those who are poor and vulnerable. Community benefit investments are an important way we partner to create healthier communities, together.

In 2017, St. Joseph Health in Northern California invested more than $97.2 million in community benefit. We also were honored to complete the Community Health Needs Assessments with our partners to identify the greatest areas of unmet needs in communities we serve across the state. We have discovered common health-related problems in the three counties we serve. Among our top priorities in Northern California are: mental and behavioral health, substance abuse, homelessness and housing, economic issues and access to care and resources. Here are just a few of the inspiring ways our investments are working in our communities:

Napa’s Queen of the Valley Medical Center has long-supported new mothers who are struggling to overcome mental health issues. Now, through a $150,000 regional strategic planning grant from Providence St. Joseph Health’s Well Being Trust, the hospital will convene key community stakeholders and develop a comprehensive, coordinated plan to prevent and address perinatal substance use and abuse. The plan will include consumer education, provider training, perinatal screening, intervention and treatment options as well as high risk family support. This is in addition to a $750,000 grant the hospital received over the summer to address mental health, addictions and homelessness.

In Sonoma County, two grants from Providence St. Joseph Health’s Well Being Trust took our commitment to supporting homeless individuals a step farther. A $500,000 grant to Petaluma’s Committee on the Shelterless (COTS) is providing assessments, stabilization, necessary health care and preparation for placement into permanent supportive housing to nearly 1,000 people who are homeless, many of whom struggle with mental health and/or substance use disorders. An additional $300,000 grant to the County Department of Health’s Whole Person Care Strategy is funding a data management system that allows county and local health systems to better communicate with each other about MediCal patients who are homeless, or at risk of homelessness, and have a serious mental illness.

In Humboldt County, a $1.2 million grant awarded by Providence St. Joseph Health’s Well Being Trust helped ensure a new 56-bed detox and residential treatment facility called Waterfront Recovery Services, could open to care for individuals struggling with homelessness, mental health and substance abuse issues. The funding provided a physician overseeing services and a psychologist who is qualified to treat behavioral health issues and prescribe medications for the detox process. Through this grant, an additional $400,000 created the Humboldt Accountable Community for Health, which works across sectors, investing in upstream strategies to prevent substance abuse.

We invite you to learn more about how we are working to fulfill these needs and keep people healthy at www.StJosephHealth.org/Community. It is our privilege to serve people throughout Northern California.